Great Southern Bank Vice President and Managing Director Heather Ramsey has demonstrated not only a drive to be successful in the business world but also the determination to make a positive impact on her community.
At 23 years old, Ramsey served as a co-chairwoman on a United Way of the Ozarks campaign she says accomplished the highest rate of donations in the organization’s history. At 28, she was named a regional manager with Great Southern Bank, overseeing 14 banking centers and 100 employees.
Holding that position for two years, Great Southern doubled its regional loan production each year and increased net deposit accounts by 200 percent. Ramsey’s management success led to an opportunity 10 years ago for her to launch the bank’s VIP banking department, which offers financial services and customized banking programs to executives and professional clients. Her work in marketing and employee development has produced a department equal in size to the bank’s third largest banking center.
“What started as simply an idea has grown into a multistate operation with more than 1,750 accounts under management,” Ramsey says.
Ramsey also has been active in several area civic organizations. She’s been a member of the Rotary Club of Springfield Southeast since 2003, on the board of directors of Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, and a graduate and board member of Leadership Springfield.
Perhaps most influential is her work with her Rotary Club’s charity, Don’t Meth With Us, for which Ramsey serves as a board member.
“This project has allowed us to go into every fifth-grade class and every high school in the Springfield school district, along with many of the surrounding communities, and teach them why they should never try methamphetamines,” Ramsey says. “We have touched more than 12,000 lives in our community and with the success of this program, we are now moving forward with a program for the middle schools as well.”
In the community and in the workplace, Ramsey says she strives to serve as a mentor.
“Through my leadership at Great Southern, I feel that I have influenced the success of my teammates by fostering an environment of mutual respect and understanding,” Ramsey says. “I make it my mission to help them grow and move up within the company.
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